BADGE

Silver badge in the form of a female bust, in quarter profile (left), wearing early sixteenth-century dress, including a 'kennel-shaped' head-dress with hair loose beneath. The low square neckline of her dress reveals a cruciform pendant that she wears around her neck. The object has a cabled border on its lower edge, probably representing a crest wreath or torse; it may be therefore that this badge is heraldic.

On the reverse there are two extant stitching loops, one at the top behind the head, and one in the left corner. A third loop is missing but a scar remains in the right corner where it was originally attached. The object has been bent at a point close to its centre, and may have been deliberately bent before being lost or deposited. Length 45mm, width 30mm, thickness 10 mm, weight 16g.

No exact parallel for this object could be found, but compare NMS-33EB96 and NMS-A14532, both of which show human busts or figures above a crest wreath. The object is reminiscent of pilgrims' badges, popular from the fourteenth century until the Reformation, though most are made of lead-alloy, not precious metal. Given that it appears to depict a heraldic crest (demi-figures are not uncommon as crests) it is probably, like the parallels quoted above, a secular badge.

James Robinson (British Museum) has suggested this badge might be of St Ursula, due to its resemblance to the bust reliquary of a female saint, probably a companion of St Ursula, from the Netherlands, in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession number 17.190.728, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/193612. This figure is 45cm high and has a very similar pendant, but lacks the square neckline and head-dress; it is dated to c. 1520-1530.